The deal, worth £126.7 million, will result in "savings" of over £20 million over the next two years. Trinity Mirror chief executive Simon Fox told Radio 4's Today that these savings would be made "largely" through cuts to the back office.

As we went to press the deal was still subject to approval by the Competition and Markets Authority on "media plurality grounds" and also required approval by Trinity Mirror shareholders.

A spokesman for the Express Newspapers NUJ Chapel said that the "brilliant journalists" at the Express and Sunday Express had for years been "starved of investment." They recently won a pay rise after many years without.

Soon after the announcement of the sale, Trinity Mirror announced a further 49 redundancies across its local newspapers nationwid